What now?
by Galadriel1010
Summary: Post-Adrift. Deals with Jack and Ianto's relationship after Gwen takes Nicky Bevan out to Flat Holme


Jack picked Gwen up from Nicky's house and drove her home in silence. Gwen was too emotionally exhausted to be anything other than grateful for it, despite the evident anger in it. Jack stopped outside her apartment and finally turned to her to ask, "How is she?"

She snapped out of her daze and turned to him with tears in her eyes, pleading with him, for what she didn't know, "She's devastated, Jack. Just seeing her son like that, it destroyed her."

He glared at her for a moment, then nodded, "Next time, listen to me."

She recognised the dismissal, but had one more thing she needed to say, "About Ianto, Jack, don't..."

"Do not presume to tell me what to do, Gwen," his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, "I'm sure you've worked out by now that he's more than just an employee or even a friend to me. But after today, he and I have a lot of talking to do before I can know if that's going to continue or not." The bitterness and pain in his voice made her flinch back.

"You wouldn't..." She shook her head, but wisely didn't continue the sentence.

He laughed humourlessly, "Don't worry, Gwen, your coffee will be on your desk in the morning. I don't have a three strikes and you're out system," he glared at her, "if I had, you wouldn't be here. But I swear, if you do that again, I will Retcon you so far back that even Rhys will be a stranger."

The threat to her relationship made the anger rise within her, "So what, are we supposed to follow your orders blindly?"

"Quite frankly, yes. Or at least not push so far and for so long that someone feels that they have to go behind my back to shut you up. Out, Gwen," he snapped when she opened her mouth again, "go and save your relationship with Rhys whilst I go and try to save mine with Ianto." She seemed to deflate at that, and got out of the car without another word, leaving Jack to glare at the steering wheel again as he tried to find the courage to face Ianto.

He drove straight to Ianto's house, letting himself in and taking off his shoes and coat, leaving them in the hall before he settled himself down in the living room to wait. Hours ticked by and he started to get impatient and worried – the irony of Ianto waiting for him at the Hub and him waiting for Ianto here had also dawned on him. Jack got up and leant against the window, watching the sky darkening; there were two ways tonight could go, and neither had the potential for a happy ending for him. If they agreed that whatever it was that he and Ianto shared was worth working to save, he would eventually be devastated when Ianto died. If, however, they couldn't move past this, he would have years to regret not fighting harder for him, for not trying harder to give him the only chance at happiness Ianto could really have in Torchwood, someone who wouldn't leave him.

And Jack would rather suffer a hundred heartbreaks than inflict one on someone else.

His mobile vibrated on the coffee table and he sighed heavily, crossing slowly to pick it up. It was a text from Owen, and he contemplated ignoring it, but he'd left the three of them alone and they might need him. As he read it, it nearly slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers – Ianto had been hurt. He ran to the hall and grabbed his coat and boots, pulling the boots on as fast as he could and shrugging the coat on as he ran down the stairs.

One of Tosh's intelligent softwares changed all the lights to green for him, clearing his way to the Hub as fast as possible. The lift took a painfully long time, and he found Owen waiting for him at the bottom, pacing and reading through Ianto's medical notes. He tossed his coat over the sofa, "How is he?"

"He'll live," Jack felt the cold grip on his gut release slightly, "Where the bloody Hell have you been, Jack? We needed you!"

"Gwen went out to Flat Holme..." he started

Owen swore, "How did she get out there?"

"Ianto gave her the co-ordinates on a GPS."

Owen stopped for the first time since Jack had arrived and stared at him, "What? You think Ianto told her?"

Jack squeezed the bridge of his nose and nodded, "Gwen told me."

"And you believed her? Jack, it was me!" He barked out at laugh at Jack's incredulous look, "Shit, the damn thing had my name in it, she's seen me use it dozens of times."

"Why did you tell her?" Jack felt the anger growing, he had trusted only Owen and Ianto with the information, and he'd kept a lid on it during the meeting the day before.

"I didn't, not really. I mean, come on, when was the last time Gwen managed to use a piece of tech without asking one of us? I presumed that she'd bring it to me, or to Tosh, and Tosh would have recognised it as mine and sent her to me." He was glaring at Gwen's monitor as a focus for his anger, "I didn't want either you or Ianto to have to deal with her, but I wasn't going to say anything in front of you."

"You thought she'd just go away?"

"No, I was going to make her go away so that you thought she's just gone away."

"Owen." Finally, he looked up at met Jack's eyes again, they were old, and tired, and sad, "Don't ever do it again, but thank you. It should have been my burden anyway."

Owen grunted and nodded, "Understood, but I'd do it again." He groaned and rolled his shoulders, "Come on, the Teaboy needs someone to hold his hand and Tosh needs a break."

Jack walked down into the Autopsy Bay as quietly as possible, realising that his discussion with Owen had been far too loud if Ianto was trying to sleep, but of course he wasn't. He was unconscious, looking almost grey against the stark whiteness of the tiled floor, with a drip into his arm and Owen's machines monitoring his vitals. The only relief was the steady, strong rhythm of the heart monitor, telling him that Ianto wasn't going anywhere any time soon – probably.

Tosh stood up and leant over Ianto to kiss his forehead, then moved to let Jack take her place. "I'm going to check the systems and then head home, unless..."

"Yeah, thanks Tosh." Jack smiled at her as he took Ianto's hand with one of his own, caressing his cheek gently with the other, "Have a lie in tomorrow. In fact, we'll have an Alerts-only day."

She hesitated at the top of the stairs, clearly torn, but eventually nodded, "Thanks, Jack, I'll see you the day after tomorrow then."

"I hope so, take care."

Owen turned and pointed his phone at her, "Tosh, come and tell me when you're done, you're not driving home today. I'll run you back." He ignored her protests with a badly concealed smile and turned back to Jack, "Run in with a Draxia," Jack paled, "not as bad as it could have been, we knew what we were dealing with before we left the Hub. Teaboy here just got a bit too close."

"And the rest?" Jack's eyes didn't leave Ianto's face, but Owen could hear the raised eyebrow.

"Two cracked ribs, again, slight internal bleeding, bruised spleen and a fractured ulma. Oh, and bruising pretty much everywhere else. He's out because of the gas, which is probably a blessing. He'll be out of action for a couple of days at least, Jack, and in pain for a while. I'd say his attention was elsewhere."

"I'm sorry."

Owen snorted, "Not your fault, me and bloody Gwen Cooper between us. I should have been with her, and you should have been with him."

"Yeah, well." Jack finally sat down on the stool and kissed the back of Ianto's hand again, holding it to his lips, "I think she's learned her lesson."

"Good, I've always been a lousy teacher." Jack chuckled and Owen turned away, "I'm going to drag Tosh away from her computers, I'll be back when I'm sure she's going to sleep tonight."

"Thank you." Jack smiled up at him as he left, then turned back to Ianto, "I'm sorry, Ianto. I'm so sorry."

As he settled down for what would be a cold, dark, lonely, sleepless night, his soundtrack was the sound of the lift as Tosh and Owen left, dripping, running water, creaking pipes, the low hum of computers and the steady beep of his boyfriend's heartbeat, shown on a heart monitor. He hated the image.

An hour dragged by, then two, as he talked, whispered promises to Ianto and reassurances for himself. He didn't let go of Ianto's hand once, an irrational part of his mind was convinced that if he did, Ianto would slip away from him. The lack of movement around the Hub had shut down most of the overhead lighting now, the sensors had even shut down the Autopsy Bay lights twice, so he had started running his fingers through Ianto's hair in a slightly creepy attempt at keeping enough movement to tell the sensors that he was there. The Hub in darkness terrified him.

He looked around nervously as another light went out and squeezed Ianto's hand tighter, shifting closer to the table where Ianto was stretched out, wishing that he was in a proper bed that Jack could curl up in with him. When he found himself closing his eyes in an attempt at hiding, he laughed and forced himself to relax, starting talking again to distract himself. "You know, only three teams have all known about my fear of the dark, they all made fun of me for it. I think Owen would have had a field day before... before he died. There was the team in 1922, who found out when the lights in here all went. We'd just converted to electric lighting, so of course it all crashed out immediately. Then in the 1960s some of the guys got stoned and turned all the lights out for a laugh, and in 198..." he frowned, "'84 I think, might have been '85, but anyway, Jenna and I were exploring the tunnels and the torch died. Bitch told the whole team. They all thought it was hilarious, Captain Jack Harkness, flirts with the monster under the bed; hell, he IS the monster under the bed, but turn out the lights and he turns into a little girl.

"I guess that's why I find it hard to open up to people, because the people I've trusted in the past have either let me down or outright betrayed me. So you see, Ianto, it wasn't you I didn't trust, it was myself. I knew you wouldn't betray me, but that was what my heart was telling me, and my head was telling me that the evidence pointed to you, and that I was wrong again.

"It's why I don't sleep well alone either; because when I was growing up, there were these things called the Vashta Narada, they hid in shadows and destroyed entire communities overnight. Come to think of it, there were quite a lot of creatures like those in my childhood, but the Vashta Narada... wiped out a city close to where I lived once, two nights later I was alone in the pub I was working in at the time when all the lights went out. I thought I was going to die, and I've never been comfortable in the dark since. I don't know why, but when I'm with you at night, it doesn't bother me so much. Maybe because I have something better to concentrate on, or maybe you remind me that I'm in the wrong century or... I don't know."

He shivered and looked around, holding onto Ianto's hand like a lifeline. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "I have to go and put the lights on constant, and some music, it's too quiet."

Through a haze of pain, Ianto felt Jack leaving him and tried to call out. Even the feeble attempt he managed brought Jack running back, his fear of what hid in the darkness pushed aside for the moment. Fingers stroked down his cheek, a hand held his own in a strong grip and Jack's voice wafted over him, incomprehensible but caring, reassuring. He squeezed back, finally, and pulled Jack closer. Jack waited for the layers of fog to clear enough before he started asking questions, "Does it hurt?"

"Only everywhere." Ianto groaned as he tried to move and only Jack's hand on his chest stopped him causing himself serious pain.

"I'll give you a morphine injection," Jack told him, reaching out with one hand so that he didn't have to release Ianto, "Owen should be back soon, he'll want to do some checks."

"I'll want to do more than that," Owen descended the stairs and took the hypodermic from Jack, preparing the injection and administering the morphine in quick, spare movements. "Tosh is out for the night, we are taking Teaboy down to one of the medical observation rooms now he's awake, okay Ianto?" Ianto just nodded and groaned again, "Can you walk mate?"

"Yeah, yeah, I think so anyway."

Owen grabbed some supplies and stood back to let Jack and Ianto up the stairs, "Don't carry him Jack, and be careful if you have to support him. The breaks are in nasty places." Jack nodded at him and followed Ianto silently, providing him with an arm to lean on when there were no railings or desks. Eventually they reached the last hundred yards, through the passages under the Hub, and Ianto held onto Jack's hand rather than use the damp walls. He smiled as Jack helped him to sit down without hurting himself on the bed in the first medical room. "Stay with me tonight?" he asked, knowing that Jack would.

Jack looked to Owen for confirmation as the medic checked Ianto's vitals again and helped him to get settled properly. He was silent for a moment and glared at the two of them, Ianto now lying back against the pillows and Jack kneeling behind him, holding his uninjured hand tightly, and finally nodded. "Okay, but I don't want you to get any closer to him than that. You can hold hands, but no further." Jack pulled an unconvincing innocent face and Owen sighed, "I don't even mean no sex, sex is out for at least a week. I don't want either of you putting any weight at all on Ianto's chest tonight at least." When they both indicated their understanding, Owen turned to leave, "And if he has a nightmare, Jack, you'll need to hold him still by his shoulders or across his waist, preferably both."

"Still here you know." Ianto pointed out, shifting his cast further down his body to rest just below his diaphragm, "We know, Owen, we've done this before."

"Too often." Jack whispered as Owen disappeared.

Ianto turned to face him with a sigh and squeezed Jack's hand, "Hey, I'm still here."

"I know, I know. God, I just want to hold you," he managed a small smile and leaned over Ianto to kiss his forehead, "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, Jack," Ianto frowned, "you couldn't have known we'd have trouble and I should have been more careful."

"It's not that."

"Then what?" Jack looked away and Ianto held his chin gently to turn him back, "Jack, what?"

Jack couldn't meet his eyes, "I thought that you'd told Gwen how to get out to Flat Holme Island."

Ianto dropped his hand to the bed and was silent for a while, "You believed that I'd gone behind your back like that?"

There were tidal waves of hurt in Ianto's voice and Jack felt even worse than he had before – an impressive feat. "I..." he started and stopped, looking away again to a photo of the team on the desk in the corner, "I knew you had, I followed the evidence. But I never believed that you'd hurt me like that."

"That doesn't make sense, Jack." Ianto was staring fixedly at his hands where they rested on his stomach.

Jack sighed and sat back on his heels, getting the distinct impression that Ianto wanted him to leave, "I trusted you to do the right thing, but... I guess I didn't know what the right thing was."

"Do you know now? Did I do the right thing?" Ianto asked, with a tone more gentle than it had been.

Jack chanced a glance at him through lowered lashes, "Yeah, you did. So did Owen, but don't tell him I said that."

Ianto chuckled and took Jack's hand, lacing their fingers together again, "You watch too much CSI, Jack. But I guess, that would be where the evidence lead. Assuming that the package Owen asked me to tell Gwen about was how he told her, and I was the one to try to mediate between you both."

Jack looked down at him hopefully, "Am I forgiven?"

Rolling his eyes, Ianto reached up and pulled Jack down to kiss him. "Of course," he smirked, "but only if you get your shoes off and get in here with me." They settled down in the darkness, Jack on his side facing Ianto and Ianto flat on his back, one of Ianto's hands clasped in both of Jack's between them. The lights in the corridor blinked out and Ianto sighed, squeezing Jack's hand tightly, "Jack?"

"Mm-hm?"

"I'm looking forwards to being able to sleep on top of you again." Jack grinned and reached over to turn out the light above them.


End file.
